


a chance, once

by fugues



Series: zexal au meme [7]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 01:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fugues/pseuds/fugues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vector is ten years old, and escaped. A stolen Baria Lapis tucked under his shirt to keep him hidden, keep him looking - and feeling, which is disgusting - like any of the humans around him, too-big clothes he stole from the facility when he fled, and he makes do by stealing food and sleeping in alleyways and doorways. And it’s foul, the human body and the hunger that claws at his stupid human stomach and makes him toss and turn on the cold ground at night because it’s too insistent an ache to sleep through, but Vector is free. He’ll never be owned by a human, never submit to it like the pathetic sheep that claim to be Barians.</p>
<p>(they’re not, Vector hisses insistently to himself, because no real, proud Barian would let a human control them for a single moment longer than necessary)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a chance, once

**Author's Note:**

> from august, for the zexal au meme. #8, au where the barians are a servant race and the lapises keep them human rather than allowing them to take barian form.

Vector is ten years old, and escaped. A stolen Baria Lapis tucked under his shirt to keep him hidden, keep him looking - and feeling, which is disgusting - like any of the _humans_  around him, too-big clothes he stole from the facility when he fled, and he makes do by stealing food and sleeping in alleyways and doorways. And it’s foul, the human body and the hunger that claws at his stupid human stomach and makes him toss and turn on the cold ground at night because it’s too insistent an ache to sleep through, but Vector is  _free_. He’ll never be owned by a human, never submit to it like the pathetic sheep that claim to be Barians.  
  
(they’re  _not_ , Vector hisses insistently to himself, because no  _real_ , proud Barian would let a human control them for a single moment longer than necessary)  
  
Still, Vector is tired and  _starving_ \- though not weak, never weak, because pain only makes him stronger, only keeps his starfire burning through the human flesh with his resentment as fuel - and he won’t be used by humans but that doesn’t mean  _he_ can’t be the one to use  _them_ , does it? So when he hears about the sick little kid -  _tragic_ , isn’t it, how stupid and weak the humans are - whose old man is apparently willing to give out a pretty impressive-sounding reward in exchange for some kind of cure or treatment, he jumps at the chance. Because, really, it couldn’t be a better opportunity, could it? Go there, pull something to make the kid  _seem_ better, which shouldn’t be too hard, and get the hell out of dodge before anyone realises that, whoops! Kid’s still sick! Too bad, so sad, but how could he have known his ‘cure’ wouldn’t work on a human kid like it would a Barian?  
  
He stashes the Lapis in an alleyway before he turns up with wings buzzing behind him as he announces what he’s there for and is brought up to a large, mostly-empty room where some tiny kid - he’s, what, six? seven? - sits in a bed that looks too big for him thanks to how small he is. There’s another kid there, too, older than the little one and probably older than Vector too for that matter, who stands beside the bed and glares down at Vector and you know what, turnip-head, he thinks, screw you too, and glares right back at him until the guy with the unpleasantly green suit coughs and gestures to the bed. Which, oh, right, yeah. Fixing up the kid.  
  
(‘fixing up’, anyway)  
  
Except that what Vector  _hasn’t_ taken into consideration is the fact he’s not eaten in two days and not slept soundly in nearly as long. So he reaches out with his hand and reaches out with his light past the cloying heat of his human flesh and then has about enough time to think  _oh_ before everything goes black.  
  
When he comes to, it’s in a little room, laid out on the bed with his wings trapped uncomfortably beneath him and under sheets that tear when he tries to throw them off himself. There’s food on the bedside table, and a Lapis too. Which, yeah, right, as if he’s going to risk letting any of them see his human form, so instead he pulls one of the pillowcases and stuffs in the breadroll and the bag of chips and the handful of little paper-wrapped yellow-brown-ish cubes, then stands for a long moment and stares a little longingly at the bowl of soup because it’s still steaming and when’s the last time Vector got to eat something warm? But there’s no way he’s touching the Lapis and he’s got no way of taking it otherwise, so he makes for the door with the pillowcase as is instead and opens it.  
  
And proceeds to crash straight into the turnip-head from earlier.  
  
(brilliant)  
  
Said turnip-head proceeds to kind of blink at him, looks down at the pillowcase full of food and - looking over Vector’s shoulder - the fact he hasn’t touched the Lapis or taken the soup with him, and then sort of sighs and gets this slightly softer look about him and says, “Nobody’s going to hurt you, you know.”  
  
Which, uh, okay, of course they’re not going to hurt him because Vector won’t  _let_ them, except it’s not like turnip-head is actually threatening him and so Vector stalls a little, stares up at him and squints and flutters his wings suspiciously. And turnip-head keeps giving him that weird soft look that’s making Vector uncomfortable, so Vector snaps out  _what_ and clenches his claws around the pillowcase and keeps on squinting upwards until turnip-head shakes his head a little and says, “You can try again later, you know, once you’ve eaten something.”  
  
Vector keeps up the squinting.  
  
“Look,” turnip-head says, firmer now but still uncomfortably soft, “Haruto said he could see your light and to trust you, okay? So I... trust you. If Haruto says you can be trusted, I believe him.”  
  
Which. Oh. Vector feels kind of... oddly naked, really, at the thought of some little human brat being able to see his light.  
  
It apparently means food, though, and the chance to have another go at this once he’s stronger so he can still get the reward that’ll let him  _continue_ to have food. So, you know what, he can deal with it. He still slips past Kaito though, shooting an  _I’ll be back tomorrow_ over his shoulder as he hurries out of the tower.  
  
He does come back the next day, like he said, though he doesn’t shed his Barian form. Easier anyway, he tells turnip-head - Kaito, apparently - to channel his energy that way. It’ll take a little while regardless, though, he tells him, because one meal doesn’t detract from the fact that he’s still half-starved and he’d rather not knock himself out again. And tur-- Kaito is... more okay with that than Vector had expected. Really must trust the little brat’s judgement, huh?  
  
He even offers to let Vector stay the night, though he hardly seems surprised when Vector refuses. Just shrugs a little and hands him a proper bag this time rather than a pillowcase, weighted down with something Vector can half-smell even without an actual nose.  
  
(when he’s human again and he opens the bag he finds a thermos of soup and another of hot chocolate and a portion of hot noodles in a heat-proof container and he burns his tongue and throat in his haste to get them down and they sit uncomfortably in his stomach after the speed of it but he doesn’t  _care_ when it’s been so long since he got to eat anything not lukewarm at best)  
  
So maybe, given that, Vector slips a little. Gets complacent. Kaito keeps giving him food, different things every day but there’s always the handful of little paper-wrapped cubes - caramel, Kaito tells him when he catches Vector squinting at them once - and after a particularly cold night his bag ends up burdened with extra blankets, too. So Vector sort of... hangs around. Keeps turning up even when Haruto’s ‘better’, which definitely wasn’t a part of the plan. But the kid is... well, he’s kind of cute - for a human brat - and he grins at Vector and slips more caramel cubes into Vector’s bag when Kaito’s not looking, and once he draws a crayon picture that he says is him and Kaito and Vector, and mostly it’s just blobs as far as Vector can tell but, somehow, looking down at those huge proud eyes, he finds himself complimenting it when he’s certain he meant to scoff.  
  
And then Haruto starts to deteriorate again. He turns up at the tower to find Haruto pale and subdued, and Kaito pulls Vector out of Haruto’s room into one of the corridors and asks -  _pleads_ \- for Vector to fix him again, to make it  _better_. So Vector just kind of stands there and stares up at Kaito and buzzes his wings nervously, says  _I can’t_ and watches the way Kaito’s face crumples, the way the light goes out of his eyes.   
  
“It-- it’s because he’s human,” Vector goes on, stares up at Kaito wide-eyed. “It would have worked fine for a Barian but he-- he’s not.”  
  
The excuse is pre-planned, prepared since before he ever actually came here but it still tastes bitter on the tongue he doesn’t have right now, still catches thick and cloying in his throat because Kaito looks so  _broken_. No matter that that should be  _good_ , that a human’s pain should be satisfying after everything the Barians have suffered from the humans, Kaito’s hurting and it-- it  _hurts_ , and Vector--  
  
Vector laughs. It bubbles up in his chest and forces its way out and it feels like shards of glass being torn out of his throat and he should be bleeding, he thinks, except that Barian bodies have no blood and so there’s no bleeding besides the words that rush out of him, telling Kaito that  _of course_ it hadn’t worked, it was a  _trick_ , what  _idiot_ would fall for it?  
  
On and on the words pour out, broken up with the fractured laughter and Kaito’s eyes are go cold and hard but he’s still hurting, it’s still obvious that Kaito is hurting and all the while Vector is screaming inside  _why isn’t it good? Why does it hurt? What did you **do**  to me, human!?_  
  
It’s sudden when Kaito snaps back, shuts him up, and the exact words blur in Vector’s ears but he knows them anyway, knows the whole song and dance because it’s just the same as every human, isn’t it? Barians are untrustworthy, Barians are monsters, Barians are sick and twisted and the laughter bubbles out of Vector again because  _he knew it! he knew it!_ And the thought is almost gleeful in Vector’s mind, flashing like knives and hurting just as much but isn’t that the point, that humans will always want to make him hurt? That even the ones he thinks can be trusted are only waiting for the right moment to turn on him?  
  
And then Kaito’s throwing something heavy at him and Vector flees, laughing all the way, until he finds himself back where he’d stashed his blankets and his Lapis and he just stops and stands there, falling suddenly silent so that it rings in his ears louder than the laughter.  
  
He won’t make a mistake like that again. Won’t trust any of them again. From now on Vector will be  _smart_ , will use the humans and hurt the humans and never once let himself believe again that any of them could possibly care for him, that it would ever be worth his energy to even consider caring about them.  
  
(he shreds the crayon picture with human hands, the better to rip it more precisely into as many tiny pieces as he can)


End file.
